Billy meets Tom and Joe for lunch in the woods and reveals, to his chagrin, that he has actually started to enjoy eating worms and cannot stop. Tom's younger brother brings him another one, which he eats in view of Alan and Joe to win the bet.īilly buys a minibike with his winnings, while Alan begins working at a store to earn back the $50 he lost. They lock him in a closet and plan to lower him into a water cistern so that he cannot win, but Billy's father sends them home and orders Billy to go to his room before he can eat a worm he has found. On the last day of the bet, Billy discovers that Alan and Joe have given him a fake worm made of beans. Billy's parents eventually learn about the bet, but decide to support him and even help by preparing some of the worms. Even with a free choice of condiments-from peanut butter to horseradish-Billy. Alan and his friend Joe O'Hara try a variety of tactics to keep Billy from eating each day's worm, to no avail. Billy makes a bet with his friends that he can eat 15 worms in 15 days. Billys family, after checking with the doctor, takes everything in stride.

But later it looks as if Billy will win, and the challenge becomes getting to the worm to eat it. He uses condiments such as ketchup, mustard, and horseradish to disguise the taste of the worms, and his friend Tom Grout assists by frying them to make them more appetizing. At first Billys problem is whether or not he can swallow the worm placed before him, even with a choice of condiments from peanut butter to horseradish. The story continues in two sequels: How to Fight a Girl and How to Get Fabulously Rich.īilly Forrester accepts a bet from his rival Alan Phelps to eat one worm per day for 15 days, with $50 at stake for the winner. It was later turned into a CBS Storybreak episode in the mid-1980s, and a movie of the same name in 2006. It has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association's list of most commonly challenged books in the United States of 1990-2000 at number 96. The novel's plot involves a boy eating worms as part of a bet. How to Eat Fried Worms is a children's book written by Thomas Rockwell, first published in 1973.

Thomas rockwell how to eat fried worms